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Microsoft To Unify PC and Xbox One Platforms (theguardian.com)
New submitter Serzen writes: According to The Guardian, Microsoft is planning to end fixed console hardware for the Xbox One as a move towards one ecosystem running Unified Windows Applications. The head of the company's Xbox division, Phil Spencer, said that the Universal Windows Platform would be central to the company's gaming strategy. "That is our focus going forward," he told reporters. "Building out a complete gaming ecosystem for Universal Windows Applications." What this could mean is that the Xbox One becomes more like a PC, with Microsoft releasing updated versions at regular intervals with more powerful processors and graphics hardware. In theory, because games will be written as UWAs, older titles will remain compatible with the new machines.
In other news, Windows desktop will be replaced by a new UI (codename Subway) that does away with the obsolete and so last century mouse controls and replaces it with a mandatory Xbox controller to provide modern, streamlined experience across all the Universal Windows Apps. New UI will be distributed as a stealth Windows Update patch as soon as Microsoft steals some more bandwidth from your neighbors to host the 10GB of it.
Pure bullshit. You don't need yearly hardware upgrades to get a PC gaming experience that blows consoles out of the water. That's a common misconception propagated by console users. That might have been true a decade ago, but not anymore. In addition, most of the gamers I know, including myself, moved away from consoles entirely.
An Xbox is already a low end PC. The OS is now Windows 10. It makes sense, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could select to play only with Xbox Live members or PC as well.